moving my tank onto a new stand

[kolosy]

i originally wanted to swap tanks entirely, but that's probably a much more expensive and involved procedure. i am going to move from my current stand, which is ill-suited for a marine setup, to a new one. i'm also going to level the damn thing (current one is probably a 1/2" off along the 36" edge).

i have a tailspot blenny and a 6-line, 5 corals (gsp, open brain, candy cane, plate, mushroom), CUC and 2 peppermints.

my assumption is that catching the fish is going to be... next to impoossible, at least with all the water in there. so. i have a 6 gal qt that's running, and a 10gal sump/fuge, with a piece of lr, and a dsb (mud bed actually, but that's semantics).

proposed procedure:

catch the two peppermints, move them into the fuge (want to keep temp and salinity as close to current as possible)

drain the water to about 1/4 level, try to catch the two fish. hopefully at that point they'll have fewer hiding places. relocate them to qt.

drain the water a bit more - leave enough for the cuc to be covered - maybe 2" above the sand bed. make sure all snails and whatnot that's on the rockwork are placed on the sand bed.

at that point the aquarium should have roughly 1/8 the water volume (~6 gallons or ~50lbs) + 40lbs sand + 45lbs rock + aquarium - total of around 180lbs.

slide the aquarium on the current stand out of the way.

place the new stand in the appropraite spot and level/shim.

position old stand in front of it, and (depending on height difference) either slide accross or lift onto new stand.

add water (place bowl onto sandbed, pour water into it, to not kick up a dust storm), and inhabitants. hopefully the amount of time the rocks and whatnot are exposed is < 1 hour.

anything you guys can recommend?

if things go according to plan, will it cycle?

[barbra]

It will work that way, but there will be some die off of sensitive creatures even if you keep the rock moist. I would remove the corals that are not fixed to rocks first, then remove the rocks to a rubbermaid container with a covering of tank water over them and then catch the fish and add them to the rock container and add a powerhead while you switch the stands.

Be careful not to tork the tank so a seam doesn't blow as you slide it to the new stand. Then add the rocks and critters back, using this as an opportunity to perform a water change of about 50% since the stuff that's in the rubbermaid will be somewhat "used".